by Michael Winter, USA TODAY

by Michael Winter, USA TODAY

The night shift at a Chivas Brothers distillery screwed up this week and accidentally flushed about 6,000 gallons of Scotch whisky down the drain, according to reports from Scotland.

The 80-proof goof happened early Tuesday at a bottling plant in Dumbarton, where workers were cleaning equipment. Instead of purging the wastewater, they instead expelled 18,000 liters of bulk whisky into the local sewage system.

"It was like someone turned on a tap, and it just ran straight down the plughole," an "insider" toldThe Scottish Sun.

No one at Chivas noticed until 11 a.m., but local sewage crews had gotten a good whiff of the scotch-and-water problem and were attempting to identify the source long before the distiller reported what had happened.

"Discharging large volumes of alcohol into the sewer network can have an adverse impact on wastewater treatment processes, particularly during dry, cold weather," Scottish Water said in a statement, the BBC reported. "We are continuing to closely monitor our Dumbarton wastewater treatment works to ensure treatment has not been compromised."

Chivas Brothers is best known for Chivas Regal and Ballentine's, the second-best-selling scotch in the world.

The company said it was investigating.

Some workers may find themselves on the rocks and reaching for a bottle.

"The guys responsible will be lucky to keep their jobs," the Sun's insider confided.